Courageous Cooking Masterclass
Our Flagship, Life-changing,
Recipe-Free Cooking School in the South of France
As Seen In
Since 2017, the Courageous Cooking School and RecipeKick have welcomed over 500 home cooks to learn to cook without recipes, in the South of France. We invite you to become one of our next culinarians to crack the code of cooking seasonally, more deliciously, and saving time while you’re at it.
Each Courageous Cooking experience gives you an opportunity to dive into the world of French Culinary techniques, discover French (mostly natural) wines that we procure from around the country, and master the art of cooking without recipes.
Our proprietary Courageous Cooking School & Method is a truly, one-of-a-kind masterclass in recipe-free cooking, developing dishes from scratch, using only the highest quality products including single-origin spices, organic produce, and locally crafted everything.
The school is an in-depth, hands-on culinary education that provides one-on-one attention and an immersive opportunity in slow travel. We cook from the bounty of local produce from Provence—including produce and herbs and eggs from our own organic farm and local farms in the area.
Here at the Courageous Cooking School we know that you are….
Capable
You have skills, you can make things happen, turning them into functional dishes? We can help you navigate the details, you bring what you have, we’ll weave it into something delicious.
Intuitive or can build that intuition…
Maybe you’ve got keen intuition in the kitchen, maybe you don’t. Wherever you are, we can meet you there. Our expert instructors are trained to navigate experts to novices in the same class.
Curious about Cooking
No matter where you are on your cooking journey, we know if you’re here and reading this, you’re curious to make delicious things and you’re ready to develop new flavors in your kitchen. We’ll help you make that happen.
Your innate capacity to be a better cook isn’t hiding in another cookbook*, it’s already within you. And our expertly trained instructors are with you every step of the way to unlock that magic.
*Psssst…WE LOVE cookbooks too. In fact our founder wrote one called Mostly French. We just think we can use cookbooks better if we cook from the hip…better.
What will you learn in your time with us?
Our mission if for you to think more like a chef in your own home kitchen, allowing you greater creativity and capacity to cook seasonally, without fuss (no more multiple grocery store runs to nab that missing ingredient), and to save anywhere between 60 to HUNDREDS of hours a year in your own home kitchen. Over a lifetime? That’s pretty priceless.
How does that all boil down?
You’ll learn many of the key French techniques (including: sauces, stocks, sautéeing, roasting, and more) AND you’ll learn how to turn them on their heads so you can create an infinitesimal amount of dishes from these crucial and classic skills
How to mix and match spices with ease, so that your ‘go to Chicken’ recipe is something you can make five days in a row without it actually tasting the same.
Crucial knife skills to love, and some to lose. You’ll walk away with the chef-y tools necessary for the home cook, and we’ll demystify what you don’t need.
What you actually need in your kitchen pantry, spice cabinet, and batterie de cuisine to cook well.
How to go to a market, shop for whatever brings you joy, and then actually be able to turn that bounty into something delicious from anywhere in the world.
You’ll learn the why behind your favorite dishes, and figure out new ways to understand why that why doesn’t actually matter in the long run.
What Our Previous Guests Have to Stay
The Courageous Cooking School is based in the French Rivera. We spend time in Valbonne, Grasse, and Cannes.
Inclusions
Every week strangers and friends mingle together at the Courageous Cooking School
In fact many stay connected after their stay with us for years to come, and become lifelong travel buddies and friends. If you want to come back after you visit us? You absolutely can! Joining the Courageous Cooking gang is like getting access to a not-so-top-secret-travel club. Because…we host level 2 classes, Courageous Cook Camps, and trips around the world to Italy, Morocco, Spain, Mexico, and more. In fact, 60% of our clients do return to another trip with RecipeKick after their first trip.
Step into the magic of the Courageous Cooking School
Imagine...
You pack your bags, hop a plane, do a little pre-school site-seeing and then make your way to the Bastide de Valbonne. A beautiful, 4 star hotel in the village of Valbonne. A living village where butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers still exist all within the perfect, quaint streets.
Upon arrival, you’ll be welcomed by the hotel staff and shown to your beautiful room. We begin your experience with a high-end, locally sourced bistro meal (just a stone’s throw from the hotel) with Makenna or Kendall.
The next morning, we whisk you away to one of the best seasonal markets in all of Provence. Where you’ll sample anything and everything you could possibly imagine. You’ll shop for every single ingredient for the week, and we’ll take it from there. Lunch is a private tasting experience at one of the best farm to table restaurants in the Riviera, paired with wines of literally every color, and texture. Sparkling, rosé, red, white, and orange too. That evening you return with your spoils to our restaurant in Grasse, to create a dinner with your market haul. This four course menu will highlight classic French culinary techniques, focusing on key use cases for the home cook, and using those techniques to create entirely new dishes from the classic basics.
On day two, you’ll explore Grasse’s perfume makers and meet with one of the most renowned noses in all of France, you’ll explore it’s market, and we’ll end up at our restaurant in the heart of downtown to make a lunch together in our professional restaurant kitchen. We’ll roast, sauté, sear, butcher, infuse, make emulsions and sauces, and so much more.
On Thursday, you’ll be welcomed into Makenna’s home and cook literally farm to table. We’ll begin with an apéro style lunch, a farm tour, and end with a multi-course cooking class in Makenna’s farmhouse kitchen. We’ll dine in the fields (weather permitting) and enjoy the country side of France.
Over the week, you’ll master the art of crafting farm-to-table dishes–all from the hip.
The three day masterclass is set up to demystify deliciousness for the home cook. And we’ve removed any barriers to your learning and retaining the information.
We have built our curriculum vetted educational experts and hundreds of clients.
Your mission during the week is to enjoy and immerse. We’ll clear the table and do the dishes, we’ll do your laundry, we’ll housekeep your room each and every day. The staff to guest ratio is 1:1, with staff on-site approximately 12 hours a day. (And each of them are paid well enough to actually love their job.) Impeccable hospitality is the name of our game.
Worried you won’t retain everything? A lifetime membership to our live-streamed online platform RecipeKick is included so you can practice all your new found skills at home, with guidance and support.
Your Questions…Answered
-
Absolutely not!
But, we’re all trained in French culinary techniques. We prefer to use the French techniques to amplify new uses. Our educational model has been honed over years and year of clients.
You’ll be able to master French techniques, and use them in a myriad of new ways.
French culinary schools are very rigid. We’re the opposite of that. -
We will not be cooking from Julia Child’s cookbooks, or learning to cook like her - not at all!
We want you to cook LIKE YOU. Using new found techniques, gorgeous knife skills, and delicious flavor combining.
The only way we try to embody her spirit? We encourage a willingness to just give it a good ole’ fashioned try in the kitchen AND a freewheeling love of really good cooking technique.
Want to rent La Pitchoune and cook from Mastering the Art of French Cooking? You can do that by clicking here.
-
Probably not. If you’d like to stay at La Peetch instead of the hotel, you’re welcome to rent the house for the week and attend the school. The cost to rent the house is $10,000 for the week in addition to the cost of the school which is $7500 per person.
-
ABSOLUTELY NOT! We’ve worked with people from all abilities. Literally from people who have never even boiled an egg, all the way up to students who are cookbook testers and recipe creators professionally.
No matter your current skillset, you’ll learn something that will blow your mind. A technique, a historical tidbit, a new dish. THAT we can promise. And we’ll give you some homework so you can prep, and be the teacher’s pet from day one. ;)
-
We go to Valbonne, Cannes, and Grasse. But in general, it’s not a TON of site-seeing. And everything during the three day master class is culinary focused.
-
Dyson Hair Dryers AND AirWraps. High-end ammenities (Caudalie and InnerSense) So...Yes! We have everything on campus you need. We ask that you limit your use of the washer and dryer and combine loads of laundry with friends if you don’t have a full one. We prefer not to let you use the laundry whatsoever, but if you need it, we won't say 'no'.
It’s a historic house and we need to be gentle with water consumption.
And we do take your laundry off campus one day a week if need be , too. -
Nope! We can’t. Our philosophy is ‘Be. Here. Now’.
I know that’s weird for those who are used to tour groups, but we aren’t rigid in terms of schedule around here. We live in France, a country that loves to live in the mindset of ‘it depends’.
Since we’re seasonal, we also change things from time to time. We’re not here to create the perfect vacation, we’re here to facilitate a deep dive into the local cuisine. And to teach you about the local cooking techniques, produce, etc. And that changes from season to season.
-
Not sure how to answer that for you! The experience is expensive for a number of reasons.
If you compare us to our colleagues in high-end travel/hospitality/cooking experiences with backdoor access to things you couldn't do/get on your own, we're pretty much the same price. The fact that this house 'feels like it belongs to the public' because it was Julia's is a problem in how people perceive our pricing.
There are a number of factors that made us bring our prices to what they are now. Including…
Pandemic. Business debt from said pandemic. The real cost of doing business. Etc.
Living wages are expensive. We don’t just pay living wages we pay thriving wages. The absolute lowest paid humans on our team makes $25 an hour (US based) or at minimum DOUBLE the current SMIC (their minimum wage) for Europe based folks (cleaners/dishwashers/nanny for our kiddo because…we work a lot when you’re with us…etc).
Food, hospitality, and tourism is traditionally a “low-ish cost” game. And we think that sucks. People are underpaid in the food world, and we decided to say “nope” to that. In fact, the labor laws around “what it costs to actually make food/run tourism” are freaking outlandish, and we refuse to continue the exploitation of food folks.
We only welcome up to seven folks a week, most of our colleagues in the industry host 10-15 people at a time, and OFTEN their programs do not include lodging, all-inclusive beverages, transportation, etc. The pricing for these experiences is pretty comparable to ours when you look at what we include as extras including the online programs, what we send your way, transportation, etc.
We're an educational institution, not a tourism experience. Joining us is a way to get a long-term education in recipe-free cooking, and in classical techniques. Both in-person, and in our online platform.
Why am I being this transparent?
Well…because I think business should be more transparent. The real costs of most things in business are hidden, and not talked about. AND the expectation for affordability of certain industries are directly linked to colonialism and capitalism. Ahem.
And since we’re a relatively public facing business, with a TV show on major networks?
Transparency is important.
The good news?
Our online school is now FREE to join, and we’ve built a new lower cost program for folks who want to spend time with us. It's called COOK CAMP! And it starts at $4000 a person! And is at La Peetch!
The Courageous Cooking School is for people who want to shift their entire frameworks on cooking and spend time with Makenna and Kendall at the farm, and in Grasse.
And yes…we’re expensive. Because we have to be. And because...Most people who attend say it is utterly worth it.
-
HEY FELLOW NERD! SURE!
Recipe-free cooking requires flexibility.
We crafted everything aboutt he experience to be a bit intentionally vague, because recipe-free cooking is intentionally vague.
This is also why we have each of our bedrooms super luxe, if a bit cozy. We want to create comfort in the discomfort of ambiguity, to create cozy in a process that pushes people out of their comfort zone.
Our curriculum and the schedule itself, and the very notion of a flexible schedule is all intentional. It was built and verified by experts far smarter than even us to be the ideal cadence for a friction and application cycle.
Our method (the pyramid) was invented by Chris Nylund and Makenna Held, validated from a culinary perspective by Kendal Lane, and codified by our Chief Education Officer, Anna Barab who holds both a PhD in Education and Psychology (she came on four trips with us before she joined the team. She paid for four of them. Including this exact curriculum at La Peetch).
Marc Watkins’ research and his educational point of view is one of the cornerstones of our thought processes too. He is quoted as saying: “One way we learn is through friction. Contending with experiences that require multiple steps, time between, and applying previous knowledge with new knowledge helps ensure students learn material and reflection asks them to pause and take account of what that learning meant to them.”
Our curriculum is built to be exactly that. Create friction, give time to pause and reflect, apply and go again. The spice clubs vs. a discrete set of spices, the same thing. Ambiguity. Friction. Application. Play.
Everything we’ve built is built on purpose. It’s pedagogical, it’s playful, but it’s definitely not a vacation.